


She's Got This Look To Her

by ConcerningConstellations



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angela ages 6-23, Angela amazes me, Angst, Anxiety, Character Study, Dad Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Fluff, Gen, Humor, I dont know how to tag, Long, No clear plot, Oneshot, PTSD, Platonic Relationships, Platonic mercy76, Pre Recall, Pre-Fall of Overwatch, Protect Mercy at all costs, Symbolism, Take this, Torb and Mei are mentioned, a long, and confirmation that she is wanted., angela doesnt know how to have friends, angela has mental health issues that she doesnt like thinking about, angela needs a hug, first ff, got your necessities:, headcannon that Jack was the one to rescue orphan angie, i guess, i'm not the best at writing forgive me, idk man it's crazy, mercy needs some support, mostly angst, no romantic relationships, pacifist in a warzone, possible autism, the writing style is mess and fluctuates and im sorry, these could all be read as mini chapters but no, what is the overwatch timeline, white symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 07:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10848954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConcerningConstellations/pseuds/ConcerningConstellations
Summary: " She stares right at him, and he thinks of when he first found her, small and frail, but brimming with a sort of scorching intensity that most people try not to get too close to. "--Angela Ziegler is many, many things. (Or: A long, messy one shot that should probably be split into 7 separate chapters, with no tangible plot and a lot of timeline ambiguity. I'm new at this, but don't hold back).





	She's Got This Look To Her

Her name is Angela Ziegler, and she is alone.

 

The fabric of her nightgown — once white like her mother’s hair, like the doves her father fed in the late evenings, when everything was quiet and content — is all but ruined, grey and grimy and sticking to the back of her neck in the heat. Because, _mein Gott_ , it’s _hot_. Hot from the all the running her little legs have done, through the streets and over stripped crosswalks that her parents always demanded she utilize (the painted lines— white and once bright against the pavement— are now a crusty grey-black, just like her). Hot from the atomic clouds that bubbled the sky, keeping away the sun, an omnic terror tactic that arguably worked better than any bomb. Hot from the little fires all around her, eating up the world— the authentic library she considered a second home, the esteemed hospital her family had worked at for decades, the buildings and the broken-down cars and the _bodies—_

 

And she is alone. But she doesn't cry, because for her, right here, right now, crying means it’s over. She loses. Roll credits, raise the white flag; war _wins_ and the little girl in the once-clean nightgown with eyes as blue as the used-to-be-sky _loses_. 

 

Angela is young here, much younger than anyone else in her fourth grade class, but she is not stupid. She knows what the red means— the color that creeps out from under rubble, from the cut-open corpses. She understands. She is six and the world is on fire and Death stands beside her, and for a moment she thinks she can see Him, hood and all, dressed in darks and reds and regrets, staring right at her, right _through_ her, and she _understands_.

 

“ _Ich werde dich aufhalten”_ , she says, wiping her father’s blood from her cheek.

 

Death tilts His face— not _face_ , not exactly, but it’s the closest thing she can think of— almost like this is amusing. He says nothing. She blinks and He is gone, and she is left, and the first thing she says to the officer dressed in a blue tactical suit— the one who finds her half conscious among the carnage, not exactly terrified so much as impatient— is: 

 

_“Eile, Eile, ich muss anfangen.”_

 

The young soldier frowns, pausing from checking her for injuries to get a proper look at the girl. “I don’t speak German, sweetheart. I’m sorry—“

 

She responds in English without a second of hesitation, heavily accented but coherent. “Please, hurry. I need to start. Please, sir; there is so much I must do.”

 

The man in blue leaves her at the medical tent, but he forgets nothing. Not the red that clung to her face— her _hands_ — nor the fire that was harbored in her eyes, and certainly not her words, and how she said every syllable of them like a promise, a personal declaration of war. 

 

Her name is Angela Ziegler, and she is a student.

 

A good one at that. No, no, not _good_ , not simply better than average, no; she is the _great_. Like many other children in her circumstance, robbed of family or homes, she soon found herself enrolled in a school overseas. She knocks out elementary and middle school in two years, Highschool in less, and when colleges begin to notice her— the fourteen year old orphan prodigy from some Swiss village long gone, long razed, who can identify every bone, muscle, tissue, and major artery in the human body while wearing a blindfold— the scholarships practically write themselves.

 

She doesn't make friends easily. 

 

Scratch that. She doesn't make friends at all. 

 

It’s easier this way, she tells herself. No distractions, no noise. Occam’s razor: the simplest way is the right one. Besides, there’s no time for that, not enough hours in the day; there are too many books to read and lectures to attend and theories to study and, if it’s a good day, disprove. There is a path she has begun to pave for herself, one that she can see clearer and clearer everyday. It’s her path. _Hers_. And she knows she will walk down it if it kills her.

 

Her name is Angela Ziegler, and she has just graduated from University of Zürich.

 

She is seventeen, and she is still at the top her class. When she gives her valedictorian speech, folding her delicate hands behind her back so the crowd cannot see them shake, she sees a familiar face— one that sharpens and then blurs towards the back of the crowd, one that offsets her for a good minute before the words rush back and she continues on with the spiel. Upon finishing, the whole audience stands and claps, amplifying her already growing headache, and on nothing else but her own willpower, she forces herself to smile, give a little bow, calmly walk off stage to the room she had been rehearsing in less than an hour ago and promptly collapses. 

 

Too much. That’s all it was, really: too many people, too little space, too much noise and attention. She had done the speech as an act of goodwill towards her professors and fellow students, but she despised every minute of it; it served no purpose. She wanted her diploma, and she wanted to continue. Today was a good victory, a good first step, but there’s still so much left to do, so much she needs to accomplish so she can start helping people, so she can begin—

 

There is a knock at the door. For a moment she thinks she imagined it, but no, there it is again. She pulls herself up from the wall, straightening her gown, tugging off her graduate cap and placing it on a near shelf. Briefly, she looks in the mirror, self consciously tucking a stray strand of blond-white hair behind an ear. She is Angela Ziegler, she remembers, daughter of Natalia Ziegler and Axel Ziegler, youngest to graduated from Zürich, first to receive her MD and PhD in only three years. _Look the part_ , she scolds herself, before opening the door.

 

He is wearing the same blue uniform he sported the day he saved her, the same small smile he showed her while removing her from the rubble. The years have taken to him well, turned his arms strong and added countless shinny medals to his uniform, some of which she recognizes immediately: The Navy Cross, The Medal of Honor. They hang from his breast, bright like stars. 

 

(There is one she has trouble recognizing, something circular and white and orange and burning a hole in her irises for the nights to come, leaving her wondering, wondering, wondering if there is more than one path for her).

 

“I remember you taller,” she tells him, fighting off the urge to faint. He’s here. He’s _here?_

 

His laugh is deep and light and makes her think of sunny afternoons and cool lemonade. “I remember you shorter. _One_ of us must be right, here.”

 

“Yes,” she agrees, sounding strained instead of amused. She doesn't mean to. Taking a step back, she reaches for something to hold, something to twirl between her fingers, ground her here, now, force her to recognize this as her reality. Her hand wraps around a pen. She squeezes it behind her back until her knuckles go white and she feels like she can breathe again.

 

“You… You’re… here,” she says lamely, as if wanting him to confirm the significance of this.

 

“I am,” he says, taking her stepping away from the door as an invitation to enter, removing his military hat. “I hope I don't come off as imprudent by showing up, Ms. Ziegler. Honestly I’m, ah, I’m not even sure you would remember who I was.” 

 

“How could I forget?” she responds with a reassuring smile. “You practically saved my life when I was six. Not an average night for me.” 

 

“I was just doing my job, miss.” He rubs his hands together, and they are large and hard and calloused things, so different than her own. 

 

“Nonsense. I owe you.”

 

“No, no you don’t,” he hurries to tell her. “Not even a little, alright, miss?”

 

There is a bitter taste in her mouth, bitter like blood and burnt metal and her morning pills. “Alright,” she acknowledges, not believing it, not at all.

 

He smiles again, the lines between his brows loosening. “Wonderful. Well, I’m sure you’re wondering what I’m doing here, yeah?”

 

“The question’s crossed my mind.”

 

“I got a call last night from a friend. He was talking about how there was this kid graduating from some prominent university in Switzerland, how they finished up an eight year course in three—“

 

( _I’m not a kid_ , she wants to say, wants to scream, but instead tightens her grip on the fountain pin, prays it won’t snap).

 

“—how they’re some sort of prodigy. And then he went on and told me it was some girl from northern Switzerland, from a village that’s now just grassland and snow, who was rescued by our very same organization nearly 10 years ago. I asked him the name of the village, and when he answered, I knew.”

 

Angela stands very still, listens very carefully, trying to figure out his angle. He goes on.

 

“And I just… I wanted to see you in person. I hope that’s not weird.”

 

“No, not at all,” she says, trying to save some face. What does he want? To sponsor her? Invest? Her research is very private, very sensitive, she’s given this spiel a hundred times today, a thousand times in this past year. Quietly, she braces herself to give it again. 

 

He must have saw the seriousness wash over her face, because before she could say anything, he started, “Am I keeping you from anything? I am, aren't I. Sorry, I forgot to think that, ah, you probably have people waiting for you. Graduation parties and all of that. Classmates and friends wondering where you are.”

 

“It’s alright,” she promises, making an effort to remove the stiffness from her features, “I don’t have plans… I was just going to go to my dorm, pack up the last of my things.” She can see the confusion blossom all over his sunny face, feels her chest tighten and twist. 

 

“Do you have… ah, family waiting on you?” He knows the implication of this question. 

 

“No.” Emotionless, practiced, refusing any ounce of pity that may be sent her way. She came this far by herself. She doesn't need any of it.

 

“Oh,” he says lamely. “Well, ah, I just… I wanted to… ugh, I’m no good at this, I’m sorry, but… here.” He opens the door a crack, reaches through to where he had hid a small bouquet of lilies and yellow roses, a little beat up from the traveling, but alive and thriving and quite possibly the most amazing thing Angela’s seen all day, all year. She stares right at them, as if struggling to recognize what was happening, _why_  this was happening. What is this, what is this, _why are my eyes hurting?_

 

“Ah. Congratulations, Ms. Angela Ziegler. I know we don't really… _know_ one another well, but I just wanted to let you know your accomplishments are amazing, and I’m proud you… I’m proud. That’s all.”

 

The pen falls from her fingers. It hits the floor and bounces a bit, and her hands— once nimble, deft and confident— don't know where to go. 

 

“I… ah…” She clears her throat twice, reaching out to take the flowers, bring them in close to her face. They smell like summer, sunshine and wind. They choke her up.

 

(Maybe she’s allergic).

 

“Thank you. I… I didn't think— just… they’re beautiful.”

 

“They’re not much, but I figured it was better than nothing,” he half laughs, and before she can get anything else out past her teeth, his phone begins buzzing.Checking it, she sees his face harden just a bit, his shoulders tightening up like he was getting ready to do something painful. “I need to take this, I’m sorry. Work stuff.”

 

“O-of course, no worries.”

 

“Yes, well, it was a pleasure, Angela. I’ll be, ah, keeping both eyes open for you. I’m sure it won’t be long before you do something remarkable,” he tells her, and she wonders if he means it, or if he’s just being nice.

 

He grabs his cap and exits with a wave and a small smile, and suddenly, as if grabbed by some violent impulse, Angela races out the door, sees him trudging down the hallway about to answer the ringing device, and she calls out, nearly desperate, “I never got your name.”

 

Surprised, he turns and looks her right in the eyes, the bluest of blues, yells back, “It’s John. John Morrison. But my friends call me Jack.”

 

Her name is Angela Ziegler, and she is the head of her own hospital.

 

She works viciously and perpetually, and when she isn't in emergency surgery or looking over charts or pouring herself into her research, she is in the Middle East for months at a time. The omnics are hitting hard there. She is determined to heal harder. On a good day she averages four hundred patients, with an eighty-one percent recovery rate. 

 

(Nineteen percent too low, she knows, she _knows_ , but there is still time).

 

She only returns back to Switzerland after her staff forces her to; after they find her passed out from lack of both sleep and proper nutrition or on the verge of collapse. The last time she was in western Syria, it was when her chief assistant and, dare she say, _friend_ , found her kneeling outside the back of the medical tent, knees digging into the sand, shaking something awful and struggling to breathe.

 

Albert— that was his name— got down to the doctor’s level, carefully roped her in to an embrace, helped her remember how to pull the oxygen back into her lungs and force it to stay there. 

 

“What triggered it, Angela?”

 

“I don’t know. I don't know. I keep hearing gunshots— I keep— I don't know.”

 

“There are no gunshots, Angie.”

 

“I know. Sometimes I just… I hear things. See things. I r-ran out… ran out of pills for it.”

 

“Bullshit. You gave them to patients.”

 

“Language, Albert; there are children here.”

 

“I’m nearly a decade older than you— _You’re_ a kid. God, Angela, I know you want to save the world, but you’re just a bloody _kid_.”

 

She wants to tell him no, no, no, she wasn’t. She’s seen too much to be a kid; done too much, put her hands inside of too many open bodies, removed too many bullets and debris from barrel bombs to be just a _kid_. 

 

She goes to tell Albert all of this, goes to scream it right in his face, but she breaks mid-breath and deflates into his arms, lets herself be held, looks down at her hands and wonders how she ever thought they could fix the world. She cries in broken German for the first time in a long time, because she’s a pacifist in a war-zone, and she's hardly nineteen, and she’s beginning to learn that there’s only so much two hands can do.

 

_-_

 

She goes back to Switzerland after that, the very next night. She sleeps it all off and shows up for work before the sun is even in the sky, pushing open the doors to the hospital— _her_ hospital— and stands there in the lobby for a moment, pulling her lab coat closer. 

 

A few residents getting off the graveyard shift greet her, and she smiles at them, tired but true, and she begins the new day, all over again.

 

Her name is Angela Ziegler, and Jack Morrison is in her office. 

 

She walks in and finds him there, seated patiently in one of her big chairs, dressed in his blue uniform and cap. There are two others with him, one a bronze-skinned woman perched on the arm of another seat, with a tattoo drawn under one of her piercing brown eyes like a permanent streak of warpaint. The other was a tall man sporting combat boots and a dark beanie, and what she was certain was a bullet-proof vest. His eyes were black and bottomless and made her feel the need to call for security.

 

Upon her entering, Jack stood, smiling his sunny smile and extending a hand, which she shook in a sort of daze.

 

“Angela,” he greets, and before she can retract her hand she is pulled into an embrace, firm but not crushing, nearly comforting. “It’s good to see you, _doctor_.”

 

“And you too, Jack.” They haven't seen each other since that day with the yellow and white flowers, haven't even exchanged numbers, but they've sent each other a couple letters here and there just to let each other know they're still alive, still kicking. “Although some notice would have been nice. How can I help you?” 

 

The two others exchange a glance that doesn't exactly fill her with confidence. Jack clears his throat, asks her if she wants to sit. 

 

“I have a pre-op in half hour and surgery in two,” she says wearily, remaining where she is, glancing around the room and trying not to feel like a cornered animal. “What is this?”

 

“Your schedule’s been pushed back an hour,” calmly states the woman with the tattoo, and she hears her voice rise and fall with an Arabic accent.

 

“Been _what?”_

 

“Please, Angela,” Jack cuts in, raising his hands just a little, trying to diffuse the tension. “This is important. Really, really important. Have a seat, just for a minute. Please.”

 

She sits. The three others settle on the opposite end of her desk, which is covered with files and papers and blueprints, things she attempts to shove to the side so they can see each other properly. There is a sort of awkward silence, at first. The clock— the real, analog clock with hands instead of digits— ticks away.

 

Jack speaks first, indicating to the people to either side of him. “This is Captain Ana Amari and Captain Gabriel Reyes, some of my closest co-workers and friends. The two of them and myself represent a growing organization that—“

 

“Overwatch,” she deadpans, removing her glasses and rubbing her temples. “I know.”

 

Jack looks as if she had just slapped him. “Oh. You’ve heard of us, then?”

 

(She remembers Belgium three years ago, the fight that had broken out between a pocket of extremist omnics and Overwatch, the destruction the media had failed to correctly cover, the mess she had helped clean up.)

 

“Yes,” she responds calmly, tiredly, “I’ve heard of you.”

 

“Okay,” Jack says, slowly nodding. “Good. Because Overwatch has heard of you, too. Your work with, ah…” He reaches for a folder from his brief case, cracks it open and scans it. “‘Biotechnicananite presence and regeneration within of red blood cells’ is revolutionizing modern medicine, Dr. Ziegler. Rapidly. Too rapidly for our own medical officers to catch up with.”

 

She says nothing. Jack clears his throat and continues.

 

“We were wondering if… you could be convinced to join us at Overwatch. Help us help the world with your research; help save lives.”

 

She interrupts him, places her glasses back over her nose and reaches for a stack of papers on the far side of her desk. She hadn't meant to get into this fight with him. Hadn't meant to take out her angst of the organization on the man who saved her life. But here they were. 

 

“Is that what you do there, Mr. Morrison? Save lives?”

 

The man dressed in darks with the bulletproof vest groaned, like he knew she would ask this from the very beginning. Jack glared hard at him before answering. “Yes, that’s the goal, Ms. Ziegler.”

 

“ _Dr_. Ziegler,” she corrects without even looking up at him, running her eyes through the forms. Captain Amari laughs quietly to herself, nudging Jack with the sharp edge of her elbow. 

 

“You were right. I _do_ like her.” Angela ignores this.

 

“You’re wrong, Jack. _We_ save lives. _Me_. This hospital. This staff. Your organization is nothing but a militaristic branch of the American government with no supervision and no insight to the destruction you leave behind.”

 

The other man whistles, quick and sharp, leaning back into his chair. “I should've put money on this one, Jack. Coulda earned back the fortune you gambled away from me in the Grenadines. And then some.”

 

“Reyes,” Jack warned in a low voice, his tone all edges and angles.

 

“Just saying.”

 

“Shut. Up.”

 

“Roger that.”

 

“Look, Angela,” he starts, talking with his hands as well as his voice, “You do good work here. Great work. I recognize that and I commend it, and so do the people I work for. But imagine the people you could reach through Overwatch— the funds at your disposal, the scientist and engineers and doctors willing to work with you and your research to bring it to its full potential.”

 

“My research is very private, Jack. If it falls into the wrong hands, it can be devastating. The regeneration of cells though machinery can easily be manipulated into a biological weapon capable of horrible, horrible things.” She is still shuffling though the pages, eyes downcast.

 

“I understand. We’re not here to weaponize anything—“

 

She scoffs. “Excuse me for being bold, but I find that hard to believe.”

 

“Any why is that, doc?

 

Looking up at him, she says clearly: “Because every time I hear the word _Overwatch_ , I brace myself, I _cringe_ , because I know that it will eventually be followed by a bodycount.” She stares right at him, and he thinks of when he first found her, small and frail, but brimming with a sort of scorching intensity that most people try not to get too close to. 

 

She lifts the page, reads it aloud.

 

“ _Beijing_ : Three-hundred and twelve identified KIA, thirty-two missing. _Uelzen_ : Sixty-seven identified KIA, twenty missing. _Kayseri_ : Two and a half hundred identified KIA, eleven missing. _La Paz_ : One hundred and fifty seven identified—“

 

“Okay, alright,” Jack interrupts, pinching the bridge of his nose, “What is this?”

 

“A rough estimate of casualties caused by Overwatch intervention over the past half-decade or so. Places you go to kill omnics, but leave bloodstains none-the-less. Places my staff and I follow you, like a shadow, to try and fix it back up after you leave it buried under bullet holes and rubble.” She places the piece of paper down on her desk, jams her finger down on it, burns her gaze into Jack like blue fire. “ _This_ is why I do not wish to join Overwatch.”

 

She crosses her arms and goes quiet. Jack looks crestfallen, holding his head on one hand, drumming his fingers in a slow rhythm against the chair. For a moment, he looks like he might say something, but it lapses into refreshed silence.

 

So Amari speaks instead. Leaning forward in her chair, she folds her hands atop her knee and says flatly. “Dr. Ziegler, I understand you are a pacifist. I understand your goal is to preserve as many lives as possible, and that _killing_ sometimes seems to be the exact opposite of doing that— of _saving_.” She pauses to be sure the younger woman is listening, going on after she receives a brief, tiny nod. 

 

“But, as difficult as it say, and to understand, there are many, many cases where it just doesn't work that way. We are the lesser of two evils. We understand that.We don't try to tout otherwise. To the public, sure, we’re heroes, if that’s what gets them on our side… but the reality of this situation is that we are just _people_ , who very much so not perfect, who are living in a very much so not perfect world. We do the best we can. That isn't enough sometimes; sometimes we make mistakes, and many times, no matter the measures we take to prevent it, there is collateral damage. And that _sucks_. But, as I am sure you’ve noticed by now, this is war, and war _sucks_. Right now the only options given to us are to kill or otherwise apprehend the really, really bad guys by any means, or wait for them to them kill city after city of innocent people. Both involve killing, which is never the right answer… but one of them is _less wrong_ than the other.”

 

Angela doesn't flinch away during any part the woman’s explanation, although there were times she was tempted to. She doesn't rush to respond, but rather leans back into her chair, inhaling deeply and allowing her eyes to wonder up to the ceiling, the gears hot and frantically grinding away between her ears. 

 

“I have heard this argument before, Captain,” she says, starting with what she knows for certain. “And I don’t like it.”

 

Amari shrugs, the stiff line of her brows softening just a little. “Me neither.”

 

“Then why do you use it?”

 

“Because you’re a smart girl, Angela, and sooner or later you’re going to reach the conclusion that, sometimes, there are no right answers.”

 

The doctor says nothing for a long time, not caring how they took her silence. She needed to think. She needed the clarity for what she was about to do next. If they were impatient, they could leave.

 

(They don’t leave.)

 

Her name is Angela Ziegler, and she is a part of Overwatch. 

 

After the impromptu meeting with Morrison, Amari, and Reyes, she gives her staff her one week notice. Most of them are concerned, tell her that this hospital is everything she worked so hard for, ask her if she’s ready to move on from it already. She doesn't have a good answer, except that this just feels like the next step. She’s not sure if she believes it, but it’s enough to get them off her back.

 

On her last day, they throw her a surprise party on the roof, import her favorite chocolate from Zürich, lounge out on lawn chairs and watch the sun set. They pass around a few bottles of good German beer, enjoy the silence, the companionship. It’s nice.

 

“You’ve done a hell of a job, mate,” says Dr. Harrison, an orthopedic surgeon from Australia, a man who had once held back her blonde hair when the night before she drank too much, trying to drown out bad memories. 

 

“Agreed,” comments Nurse Micheal, who had accompanied her to her little-used apartment a couple times when she was younger, when the nights got later and he worried she might run into trouble on the walk home.

 

“Hell of a job,” McMurphy echoes, and Peter, and Prior, and Johnston, and then they just sit there, watch the sky change around them, watch the light die out and then come back.

 

She cries that night, right there, right with them, big silent tears that drip off her chin and into her lap. The good kind of tears. The kind that tell you you’ve done something right, something hard, something worth doing. If the staff notices, they don't say a thing. They just watch the stars break through the darkness, pass around empty bottles and listen to the quiet shifting of the world.

 

-

 

Watchpoint Gibraltar is stormy when she gets there. The hovercraft lands in the middle of a large courtyard, heavy with all of her research and belongings, and when the large cargo door opens and she can see out, it’s all dark. If she squints, she can see little lights through the downpour, gleams off of windows and the dim glow of lamps and florescent overheads from indoors. Thunder booms hard and deep, a drum that shakes her from the toes up, makes the breath catch in her lungs. As the pilots power down the craft, she begins to see three new lights, little and yellow, beams that catch in the rain and eventually point her way. Flashlights.

 

Jack Morrison, Anna Amari, and a man roughly the size of a grizzly bear greet her in the wash light of the aircraft. Despite the rain, they seem utterly relaxed, as if they didn't even notice the small tempest swirling around them. 

 

“Angela,” Jack smiles, and this time around he goes straight for the hug. The embrace soaks her front side, but, surprisingly, she finds she doesn't mind so much. “Good to see you. How was your flight, then?”  


Lightning strikes again, closer this time, and she flinches against the sound despite her effort to ignore it. “I landed safely, so I suppose can’t complain,” she laughs, but the sound is drowned out by another stroke of thunder.

 

Jack’s smile turns a little more wild, a little less predictable. He looks up, right into the rain, runs a hand through his doused hair. “Some weather,” he comments, happy as can be. 

 

(For a moment, she forgets which one of them is younger.)

 

Carefully, she follows his gaze, but remains inside the dry walls of the ship. “It’s… something,” she agrees tentatively, wrapping her thin jacket tighter around her scrawny frame. Ana stands next to her, obviously not as fond of the storm as Jack, playfully bumping shoulders with the younger girl. 

 

“Glad you could make it, Doctor,” she grins, hazel hair wild and tangled and flawless. “This is Reinhardt Wilhelm— one of the Crusaders from Stuttgart. He’s been with us for a few years now.”

 

The man grinned widely at her, and upon a proper look, Angela could see the scar that ran over his one eye, turned the iris a milky white and split his brow in two. However, if for a moment this made him even remotely intimidating, the sensation was soon replaced by a warm sort of friendliness as he extended a big hand toward her, let loose a booming laugh, loud enough to drive the thunder back into the clouds. “A pleasure, _Doktor_! It is a privilege to have you on board— the battle turns in our favor with you in our corner, eh?”

 

Cheeks turning rosy, she smiles and sticks out her hands, squeals when he shakes it so hard she’s certain it’s now broken. 

 

“Rein!” Ana scolds, as if this had happened many times before. 

 

“Sorry! Sorry!” The man sputters, retracting his hand quickly and raising it in defense. “I forget my strength, Ziegler, you must forgive me.”

 

She laughs good and hard, cradling her twitching fingers to her chest and letting her pale hair fall into her eyes. “No need to apologize, Mr. Wilhelm. I assure you, these hands may look delicate, but they’ve held up against enough. You only surprised me. But, if I may ask, _sprichst du Deutsch?”_

 

His eyes light up like stars. “ _Tatsächlich! Besser als dieser englische quatsch,_ ha! _Es wird gut sein, dich zu haben, Doktor, das kann ich schon sagen.”_

 

The laughter bounces around in her chest once more, and when the lightening rips through the sky again, she barely even notices. “Please,” she assures, “Call me Angela.”

 

They help her unload some of the equipment under tarps to keep it dry, placing it in a lab space so large she swoons. It’s full of tall windows and wide workbenches and a plethora of storage space that she could never hope to come close to at the hospital. 

 

“You weren't kidding about those funds,” she half jokes, half wheezes, running her hands over the dry wall. 

 

Jack crosses his arms, looking pleased. “I hoped you would like it… We have supplies being shipped in some time this week. I know you brought some stuff from Switzerland, but we’ll be providing you with the medical essentials, obviously. Plus whatever else we can do.”

 

“This is…” She doesn't know how to say the words, so she trails off, walks in a haze between sets of cleaned test tubes and submicroscopic analyzers and computers with what she assumes are hundreds of terabytes of empty cyberspace, ready to be used. It’s so… official. It fills her with resolve— there’s nothing to hold her back now, no restrictions on money or time or room. This is it. This is as good as it gets.

 

“Wow,” she just says, staring at it all.

 

“Wow,” Ana agrees. 

 

They finish helping her unpack, show her to her room, which has includes a connecting door into the lab. Jack asks her if she’s hungry, offers to have her to join the three of them for a late dinner. She politely declines, telling them she’d better set some essentials up and then head to bed. 

 

(She’s too focused to be hungry, already writing herself a mental list of which machines to calibrate first, which biological samples needed to be defrosted before the others in order to protect their experimental integrity, whether or not it was too late to start downloading some of the files on her laptop into the PC. She has so much to do. So much to _do)._

 

They bid her goodnight, tell her they're happy to have her, and close the door. She stares at the white surface for a moment, completely still, feeling the air inside her lungs, the way it settles under her ribs. She takes a moment for herself, feeling out the new world around her.

 

Then she gets to work.

 

Her name is Angela Ziegler, and she nearly just exploded herself into oblivion.

 

It’s not that big of a deal, really, but it’s a bit of an inconvenience considering that the combustion shattered the closest window, caught a nearby monitor on fire, and threw her against the back wall hard enough to see stars. 

 

Groaning, she raises and single arm, groggily feeling for her goggles and throwing them off her face, hearing them clatter uselessly against the tile. Her ears ring for what feels like an eternity, a high-pitched whistle that pierces through the half-formed thoughts of _too much solute_ and _should've done this outside_ and _verdammt_. Once she’s certain nothing’s broken, she brings herself to stand on shaky legs and grabs the nearest fire extinguisher, aiming at the smoking computer and the still-flaming bits of glass that once were a test-tube. They go all out with a pathetic _hiiissh._

 

“Athena!” she calls, wiping at her forehead, the back of her hand coming away dark with soot, “Did you get that?”

 

“If you are referring to the violent reaction that, under proper protocols, would require me to sound the fire alarm, yes. It has been throughly recorded, Dr. Ziegler,” The A.I. evenly responds from the hidden speakers above her. 

 

“Good. Thank you.” Angela sets the extinguisher down, pushes the heels of her hands into her eyes. The breeze from outside fluttered around with the flaps of her once-white lab coat, and she dreads having to explain to Jack why one of the large windows was now shattered into a thousand tiny bits.

 

The front door of the lab slides open, and a panicked voice sounds off. _“Angela!?”_

 

Speak of the devil.

 

“Good afternoon, Morrison,” she greets pleasantly, as if every square inch of her (save the two circles around her eyes, where the goggles had covered) weren't covered in grey gradients of soot, and the metal testing table she had been utilizing wasn't still smoking like a thousand lit cigarettes. 

 

He runs right up to her, and before she can move his hands are grabbing her shoulders, running down her arms, carefully checking her over for injuries. “It’s _morning_ , Angela,” he stresses, wincing when he sees a thin streak of scarlet begin to trickle down from her hairline, soak through one of her thin brows. “Hell, what’d you _do?”_ he demands, using the sleeve of his jacket to push against the cut.

 

The doctor jumps at the contact, tries to pull away. He refuses to let her move. “Oh, it was just a little hiccup, really, ah, could you—“

 

“‘A little _hiccup’?”_ he echoes, wheezing out a sort of frantic, strained laugh, “Angela, Ange, there used to be a _window_ there.”

 

She nods, tries to get him to remove his hold on her. Her forehead is starting to throb. “You are correct,” she explains in a patient voice. “But, ah… it was probably the Triethyl Aluminum. Yes. It wasn't suppose to phase out of the crystallites that quickly, it should have taken more time to dissolve into the sol—“

 

“Angela,” he says again, this time removing his hand from the cut to firmly grab her shoulders and shake them just a little, trying to get the words through, “there _used to be a window there.”_

 

“I understand,” she winces, the jerking motion amplifying the pounding in her skull. When did she begin to feel this nauseous? If she had a concussion, it was seriously going to affect her schedule. “I apologize for the inconvenience, I will certainly reimburse you for the—“

 

Jack scoffed in disbelief, shaking his head side to side. “ _Reimburse_ … no, no, that’s not the problem. Are you alright?”

 

“Oh, yes, thank you.”

 

“You’re _bleeding_.”

 

“A bit.”

 

“You look like burnt toast with raccoon eyes.”

 

“The combustion pushed me back a little, but I assure you it isn't serious—“

 

Jack scrunches his eyes shut, crosses his forearms up in from of him to form a large X. “No. _No_. Backup. Combustion? As in, like, _explosion_? That’s what I heard from seven doors down?”

 

She goes to respond but then the world flickers black, like one of those old films missing frames, and she thinks, _Yep, definitely concussion_ , before her knees buckle and the floor races towards her.

 

Jack’s arms save her, support her with what seems to be little to no effort. Subconsciously, she recognizes the scent of him, shampoo and crisp leaves, hears him tell her “Woh-kay, alright, take it easy, Ange.” through what sounds like layers of drywall.

 

“S’a.. _gehirnerschütterung_ ,” she mumbles into the crook of his shoulder, feeling her legs get picked up from the floor. The world takes a violent dip to the left, and she resists the urge to be sick. 

 

“What?” he asks her, starting to panic. She tries to say it again but the words jumble up even more, a mess of German and English syllables smushed into each other. Rushing out into the hallways, Jack lifts his chin and yells, “Ana, get down here!”

 

The noise makes her cringe violently, cranking up the voltage of her headache. “ _Concussion_ ,” she manages, “I have a _concussion_.”

 

He shuts his mouth instantly, looking embarrassed. “Sorry,” he says, much lower this time. 

 

“S’fine. M’a _Doktor,_ do not need Amari. Thank you.”

 

He shakes his head, holds her a little tighter. “Just relax, you’re not thinking straight.”

 

She seems to seriously consider this for a length of time, squinting up at the fluorescents above her. “I think I am,” she eventually responds.

 

“Lets agree to disagree,” Jack murmurs, watching as Ana comes sprinting down the long hallway, looking surprised. Gabriel is with her, back from one of his missions with Gérard and the rest of his Blackwatch group. He looks at the doctor in Jack’s arms with a mix of amusement and curiosity. 

 

“She dead?” he asks, knowing the answer.

 

Ana presses her two first fingers to the girl’s neck, measuring her pulse. “Be nice, Gabe,” she scolds quietly.

 

“I gotta concussion,” Angela tells her, matter-of-fact.

 

“She’s got a concussion,” Jack echoes.

 

“Concussion,” Ana agrees, relaxing a little after coming to the relieving conclusion that no one was dead or in the process of becoming so. She looks into the lab, at the broken window and pieces of glass and fire extinguisher aftermath.“Did you discharge a bomb in there, Dr. Ziegler?”

 

“Triethyl Aluminum,” she responds. Ana blinks. “Not a bomb. Not _really_.”

 

The older woman nods patiently, noting the blood beginning to stain her hairline. “Alright, Jack, I can take it from here,” she tells him, hooking one arm under Angela’s legs and the other under her back, effectively removing her from the man’s arms despite both their protests. “You and Gabe clean up. I’m going to take Dr. Ziegler back to her room.”

 

“I can walk,” says the girl in her arms.

 

“No, you can’t,” responds Ana flatly. “Not unless you want to trip and fall and hurt yourself something serious.”

 

“I can _walk,”_ she says again, and then the lights turn all the way up, and her vision fills with white, white, white, like her mother’s hair, the doves, and she tries to tell them she needs a moment— that she needs to check on germinating reactions, the ones she’d be handling right now if she didn't almost just get thrown through a wall— needs to finish.

 

She doesn’t, though. The white swallows it all up, and she goes limp in the captain’s arms.

 

-

 

She dreams. Dreams of them, in their lab coats, the lens of her father’s glasses being cleaned in her mother’s careful hands. Dreams of their smile, white teeth and chapped lips, carving out words in a myriad of languages, meaning a myriad of things. Dreams of the lines drawn at the corners of their mouth, between their brows, all worn and old and tired. Dreams of their deft fingers gripping notepads and pencils and scalpels, squeezed into latex gloves the color of old snow. Dreams of the things they save, they save, they create.

 

She does not dream of their eyes so much. 

 

_(Blue, blue, like cobalt, like_ mine _, right?)_

 

-

 

She wakes up in her room feeling heavy and sore, a burnt sort of taste in her mouth. Pillows are piled around her, and when she lifts her fingers to brush over her forehead, she is greeted with the familiar crinkle of bandages. Cursing quietly, she swings her legs over the side of the bed, her bare feet pressing against the chill of the floor and shooting shivers down her spine. Carefully, she peels the gauze off her forehead, using the phone by her bedside to glance at the damage. 

 

Dully, she realizes she’s wearing new clothing— a baggy Overwatch long-sleeve and sweats. She fingers the logo on her shoulder idly, trying to make sense of it. Her skin is back to the color of pearls, soft and pale, no ash or soot in sight. The hair atop her head is clean and loose, falling down her shoulders, messy bangs obscuring her vision. She’s all shiny and new, it seems. This makes her anxious. Who dressed her? Cleaned her up, put her to bed? 

 

“Pretty lucky, all things considered.”

 

Angela jumps, swiveling to face the back corner of her room where Ana Amari sits quietly, reading a book printed in Arabic. The woman doesn't even look up. Turning the page, she goes on, “I mean, the _whatever_ you were working on managed to shatter a window and catch a computer on fire. And _you_ … ha, you walk away with a scratch here, concussion there. Not even a fracture.”

 

There’s something about her voice, something about how it digs its way under her skin, stays there like an itch. Her striking eyes look up, right at her, and the doctor suddenly feels her face flush and palms grow clammy. The woman on the bed clears her throat, rubs at the back of her neck, stretching out the cramped muscles. 

 

“Gah… ah, yes. Fairly fortunate. However, the structural integrity of a… a plane of glass that thin and tall… it’s not surprising,” Angela says, the words sticking to the top of her mouth with drowsiness. Her throat feels like a desert: sunbaked, dry. Turning to the window, she sees sunlight streaming through the gaps in her drapes, hears the marching of recruits on what sounds like their morning run. How long was she asleep?

 

Ana closes the paperback, tucks it into her waistband before standing. Removing a flask from her jacket, she holds it out expectantly to Angela, who takes it, raising an eyebrow. “Tea. Good for the immune system.”

 

(She nearly laughs. Her immune system is more secure than the White House. She does not mention this.)

 

Thanking her in a quiet voice, she sips from the metal container, pleasantly surprised when she finds the liquid sweet and hot and soothing. She exhales in appreciation. Ana laughs shortly, settling herself at the end of the small mattress, proper and reserved and authoritative. Angela has not had a superior since her professors in Zürich, but she had never felt more out her her depth than under the watchful stare of the Egyptian markswoman. She straightens subconsciously, hyperaware of the strangeness of this situation.

 

“Do you remember everything?” she is asked.

 

“I believe so. Triethyl Aluminum. Boom. Concussion.”

 

“Yeah, about sums it up,” Ana says. “Feeling okay?”

 

“Feeling fine. Thank you, Captain Amari.”

 

_“Ana,”_ she emphasizes, leaning forward.

 

“Thank you, Ana,” corrects Angela, hoping they were done now, that the lecture she smelled coming was just a lingering side effect of the concussion. In order to tie things up even more, she adds, “Again, I would like to apologize for the loss of any property… I did not predict a reaction that violent that quickly after—

 

“You’ve been asleep for nearly three days, Angela.”

 

The words make her cringe, make her realize how hungry she was, how much her back ached from laying down so long. She closes her mouth, looks down, the simple pattern sewn into her sheets suddenly interesting.

 

“Oh.”

 

“Yes. ‘Oh.’” Ana brushes nonexistent crumbs from her lap, laces her fingers together over one crossed knee. She seems to be choosing her words carefully, feeling out the situation. “Doctor, Jack wanted to be the one to have this conversation with you, but I convinced him that was a terrible idea. Trust me, he can be… a lot, when I comes to this.”

 

Panic lashes out in her chest, and she squeezes the sleeves of her shirt between her fingers to keep away the nervousness. They’re kicking her out. They’re kicking her _out._ They saw her blow it— literally— and now they’re done with her. It was just a mistake though, she wants to tell them, she’s still useful. Instead, she asks in a small voice: “‘This’? What’s… this?”

 

“The well being of the people around him.”

 

_( Oh. )_

 

Angela takes a moment to reel from the response, confused. “I… I assure you, it was a simple lab accident, it will not happen ag—“

 

Ana holds up a single hand, and the younger girl feels her voice die out immediately. “How long has it been since you’ve had a proper rest?”

 

So this was how it was going to be. “I would call three days of sleep a proper rest, Captain.”

 

“Nice try, doc. No. Before that. How long before the incident in the lab?”

 

She pretends to think, looking towards the half-open drapes. She’s a brilliant medical professional, a groundbreaking scientist, but one hell of a lousy liar. “I don’t know, a day? Two? It’s difficult to remember.”

 

“Hm.” Ana Amari is not convinced. “Athena, you listening?”

  
  
“Yes, Captain. How may I assist you?”

 

“Excluding the last three days, when is the last time Dr. Ziegler has entered a proper REM cycle?”

 

The computer replies immediately. “Dr. Ziegler slept for nearly two hours last Friday, at her desk, four and a half the preceding Wednesday.”

 

“Thank you, Athena.”

 

“My pleasure.”

 

Ana crosses her arms, raises an perfect brow. “Last Friday was a week ago, _four days_ before the incident… any comment?”

 

Blushing and feeling like a child being scolded, Angela mutters, “I work best like this.”

 

“Funny, in my book, ‘work best’ doesn't include nearly blowing one’s self up.”

 

“That was just one time! I wasn't endangering anyone!” she demands, not understanding, not getting what was going on. If Ana wasn't here to fire her, what was the point?

 

Ana yells, too. “You were endangering _yourself!”_

 

It silences the whole room, the birds outside, even the AC.Angela feels her heart speed up, crawl into her throat and stay there. The other woman looks so annoyed it physically hurt.

 

“It’s been three months. You never come to dinners, to post-missions, to anything. You don’t do anything save patch people up and then go in your lab, shut the door, do Allah knows what… I came into this room three days ago and it looked like no one had stepped foot in it since the night you got here. You haven't even unpacked you personals. I mean, _Angela…”_ The captain trails off, and the doctor comes to the realization that no, she’s not annoyed. She’s just… tired? Concerned. _Concerned_. “Are you even _happy_ here?”

 

The words jumbled together in her mouth, come out a sputtering mess. “Y-yes! Of course I was— am— I am, I mean; this is everything to me, this research. I didn’t— I do not mean to be rude to reject any _offers_ , but my time— it’s so— Ah, well, there’s just so much to _do_ , you know?”

 

Ana says nothing. It drives Angela up a wall. 

 

“I mean— I mean to say that, really, it’s all rather time intensive, and the nature of my research is so… _vital_ to the future this organization, you understand, not to sound arrogant or prideful, but the more _time_ it takes me to complete… what I’m working on, the less— the more people I can’t, ah, I cannot… the more people that…”

 

No response, not even a nod, not even anything. What does she want? What can she say?

 

“I… I do not know how to be around… people. People who do not need my assistance.” It’s true, it’s _true_ , and she’s never really thought about it until now. Never wanted to. Never understood the point. “I… I’m not good at… conversation.”

 

(Not good at understanding personal space, understanding what people mean when they ask about her work, understanding that they don't want to hear about microbiological regeneration through the transfusion of nanites so small the average microscope can’t even see it. Not good at keeping still, keeping focused on the topic at hand).

 

“… Did you think we wouldn't like you?” Ana asks, confused.

 

“No,” she says truthfully, “I just thought you would like me more if I was doing my job, out of your way.”

 

“You’re not in our way. You’re the person who fixes us every time we trail blood into your clinic. We don’t even see you, most of the time. It’s… worrying.”

 

“I don’t mean to worry you. Like I said, it’s just how I work, how I operate.”

 

“Tell that to Jack, who will _not_ stop chewing my ear off about how he thinks you’redepressed.”

 

“I’m not _depressed_ ,” she says, pointedly, “I’m just attentive.”

 

Ana laughs, hard. Angela doesn't see the humor, “I know, I know. Hah. You remind me of my daughter, sometimes. So determined to do everything all alone, all by herself.”

 

This certainly get’s Angela’s attention. _Daughter?_ “I… I never knew you were a mother,” she says, quieter.

 

Ana nods, reaching into her jacket and pulling out a picture folded into fourths, herself and a child no older than thirteen smiling brightly at the camera. “Fareeha. Quite the rebel. Want’s to join Overwatch as soon as she hits eighteen, the little fool.” 

 

“She looks just like you, Ana,” she replies, squinting at the picture. “Pretty and intelligent, I’d bet.”

 

_“Too_ intelligent,” huffs the woman, placing the picture back into her pocket. “Too stubborn. Doesn't know when to ask for help.” 

 

Angela nods, rubbing her wrists and staring down at her lap. Ana tilts her head.

 

“I don’t mean to scold you, dear. I know… Jack’s told me that you haven’t had a place like this in a while.”

 

“I’ve worked with many large organizations in the past five years. None as up-and-coming as Overwatch, but—“

 

“I meant a home.”

 

Angela feels the air get sucked out her lungs, replaced with sand and gravel.She tries to recover. “Ah, I don’t… I’ve had a couple apartments in Switzerland…” 

 

Ana has none of it. “You’re _technically_ here because you are the best doctor and scientist we could find in the face of the planet. That’s what we have on file. Angela Ziegler: Head Medical Advisor. But, please, don’t limit yourself as just a doctor. You’re a _human being._ We want to… to _see_ you. To help you, to be close to you. Not to get glimpses of you every other day, half starved and running on fumes. It’s not healthy.”

 

“I eat enough to be considered well within the parameters of—“

 

“Angela.” The captain grabs one of her hands, holds it tightly. Her bronze skin in rough but warm, thawing out her pale, stiff fingers like sunbeams. “We just want you to feel at _home_ , here. Want to be your friends, not your patients.”

 

She searches for the words, struggles to get them out past her teeth, winces when they drop to the floor like lead. “I… do not know… how to do that.”

 

The hands that envelope hers tighten. She can hear the birds again. 

 

“Then we’ll help you,” Ana says, _promises_ , “You just have to _try.”_

 

Her name is Angela Ziegler, and she is _trying._

 

That night she goes to the mess hall at eight pm, sits right next to Jack, right across from Ana, and eats dinner. The former stares at her like she had grown a second head, fork frozen between his open lips, until the latter kicks him from under the table, glares daggers at him until he gets a hold of himself. They don't say much. Angela brought a small holopad with her and is typing things swiftly between bites of salad and sips of bottled water, but it’s a first step, and for right now, it’s enough. 

 

Two days later, she is with Reinhardt, listening to and Beethoven and Brahms and a dozen other composers long gone, some too far back for her to have heard of. They sit there in the hanger, where Rein is hard at work repairing a large sheet of his armor, Angela held at rapt attention as she studies the colossal suit. 

 

“You really walk around in that?” she asks, studying the overlapping slates of metal that let the Crusader bend at the joints. “It looks so… tankish. Heavy.”

 

“Yes, _Vögelchen_ ,” he says taking a step back to stare at his armor, a wild, pleased look in his eyes, “It may not be as versatile as others, but she is able to take a hit and hit back, eh? You should see my hammer! Torbjorn’s got it in his shop up north. Should be back any day now.”

 

“Torbjorn?” 

 

“Aye. I reckon you’ll meet him and Mei sooner or later— they and Winston are the brains of much of Overwatch’s success.”

 

Angela just nods, goes back to studying all the little parts of the massive creation. She patiently notes the wires that overlap behind the knees, the extra plates of protection over soft spots like the underarms and abdomen, the way the helmet snaps into place. The music plays from far above them, the tempos flying up and then crashing down, an army of violins and pianos that for some reason remind Angela of tides, waxing and shrinking, over and over. It lulls them into a content state of silence, the both of them there for their separate reasons, but together nonetheless, sharing the quiet.

 

They don’t see her for nearly a week after that. They (Jack) begin to worry she’s backsliding. 

 

And then she is found passed out on one of the couches in the rec-room, surrounded in a nest of half-written papers and scribbled notes, her glasses hanging off her nose and her legs draped across the lap of none other than Gabriel Reyes, effectively and unintentionally holding the man hostage. Upon seeing Ana and Jack enter the room, his face takes a strained, desperately look, and he points and incredulous finger at the sleeping form, and whispers in a way that still feels like a shout, “Get’er _off me.”_

 

Ana quietly asks Athena to take a picture. 

 

“For prosperity,” she explains.

 

“For blackmail,” Gabe translates, hands hovering over the young doctor’s calfs, like he was temped to throw them off him, even if it woke her up. “She’s been comatose for a century.”

 

“Forty-five minutes,” the A.I. corrects flatly.

 

Jack steps closer, carefully removing the glasses from Angela’s face, setting them on the coffee table. Stooping over, he gathers some of the papers from the floor and starts putting them into piles, glancing at some of the formulas and fractions that might as well have been written in Greek. Some of it is circled, like the answer to a long, long math equation, but most of it is scratched out in red.

 

“This gives me a headache, and I don’t even know what it _means_ ,” he admitted, flipping through a few more sheets.

 

Gabriel does not seem impressed. “We get it, she’s a prodigy, hip hip hurry, you _simplón._ Just get me out of here before she—“

 

On cue, Angela’s little form tenses up, and legs flinch violently, her bare heels digging into the man’s stomach with surprising force. He wheezes, gripping the arm of the couch until his knuckles go white. She murmurs something in what sounds like German, and then goes still.

 

“… kicks me. Again.” Gabe, looks up at the ceiling, thoroughly miserable. “Should’ve been wearing my vest for this. That’s the third time, dammit.”

 

“Hush,” Ana demands, finding a blanket and throwing it on top of the two of them. Angela stirs slightly, but doesn't wake. Satisfied, she pats Gabriel’s large shoulder. “It’s quiet time.”

 

_“Traidor.”_

 

“Ana… Ana, what do you make of this?” Jack whispers, squinting at a sheet of paper in the dim lamp light. Unlike most of the others, it was not crammed full of rushed notes or equations or scratched-out theories. It was a drawing. A series of blueprint that seemed to be pieces of one large creation, something that nearly looked like armor, but much thiner, much more complex, something with veins of technology. There were neat notes scribbled in the margins, but they were all in German and incredibly small. 

 

Ana frowns. “I have no idea. A suit?”

 

“Why, though? For who?” He brings the blueprint closer to his face, studies the way the lines curved and came together, diagramed proportionally and with the upmost care. On what seemed to be the back side of the suit—right where he imagined the shoulder blades to be— there were diamond-shaped holes, a myriad of notes scribbled out next to them, some of the words scratch out with a line. He turns the page over, sees the new shapes, the new curves and edges. He feels his jaw go slack.

 

On the paper, in shades of orange and indigo, the doctor had drawn a pair of wings.

 

Her name is Angela Ziegler, and she is far from the ground. 

 

The first model of the Valkyrie is blue and grey and heavier than she would have liked, despite how much carbon fiber she used for the bulk of the suit and how thin she managed to make the mechanical wings on her back. But this doesn't discourage her, not even a little. Her toes hang off the edge of the roof, the afternoon sky big and blue above her, beckoning her closer, closer, like a moth to a flame.

 

“You know,” Jack tells her, “I really, really hate this.”

 

“It will work,” she says, as if the words would erase any unease the man was harboring. “It’s not even _flying_ , not really. More like extreme hovering.” She looks at the small control screen built into the wrist of the suit, triple checks everything. 

 

“You’re about to jump off a building,” he says.

 

Angela turns to face him, and she has this look to her now, a look Jack has seen many times by now. A look that tells him there’s no way to convince her out of this.

 

“Yes,” she say, laughing a little. “I am.”

 

She presses the button to ignite the small engines, hears them start up, feels the heat against her back. Taking a step forward, she falls.

 

It’s absolutely terrifying. 

 

It takes about two seconds for the wings to slow her decent to more of a glide and less of a free-fall, and she spends those two seconds regretting every moment of her decision to build the suit in the first place. Frankly, she get’s why Jack, Ana, Gabe, and Rein weren't thrilled with the idea of the Valkyrie. It was strange. The technology was so complex that trying to explain how the suit functioned, gliding her from one location to another based on identified heat sources pre-programmed into its coding, moving based on the commands she inputted into the small remote on her arm and bodily gestures while in flight, was near impossible. When she tires to expand on how useful it would be to have a felid medic who can move this quickly from person to person, they cut her off immediately.

 

“You want to be a _field medic?”_ Jack sputters. Ana tilts her head, Reyes laughs. “Ange, have you ever seen combat before?”

 

“Yes.” She’s seen it her entire life, firsthand. When she was six in Switzerland, when she was seventeen in Sudan, eighteen in Israel and Iraq and Nigeria, nineteen in Syria. She’s seen enough of it for a lifetime. That doesn't mean she’s _done_ seeing it, though, not even close. “I will not be fighting,” she says, clearly, “I will be healing injured soldiers and civilians, helping them escape to the backlines when necessary.”

 

“But…” Gabriel starts, gesturing to Angela in general. “You’re… _unqualified_ for that sort of work. We can’t worry about losing you on the field. You’re a scientist. Not a soldier.”

 

“No,” she corrects, “I’m a _doctor.”_

 

So that’s how she got here: not-quite-falling, not-quiet-flying, stuck somewhere between the sky and the ground. The engines held her weight, the wings expanding and retracting to adjust for the shifting wind speeds, the small flaps along her shoulders fluctuating between fully open and flat. And she was just _there_ , descending gently, Reinhardt cheering from below her and Ana clapping politely from the sidelines. There were other recruits watching curiously from windows or distant pavilions, whispering to each other and pointing. Angela tries to ignore them. It wasn't everyday you saw a girl with metal wings floating down to the world.

 

“Still alive?” Jack called from now far above her, peaking his head out from the edge of the roof.  
  
“Affirmative!” Smiling widely, arms spread to either side of her as if to help balance, Angela had a look of pure excitement drawn upon her face, the sunlight turning her hair into a white flame. It was working. It was _working_. “Still alive!”

 

“Thank God,” he said, “I’d hate to have to find myself another doctor.”

 

“Not today, Commander. Stay where you are, I’m going to test the GA function.” The Gliding Algorithm was the process of locking onto an ally and flying to them from a distance, the suit doing all the calculation of speed and direction automatically so Angela wouldn't be distracted. 

 

(Reyes had jokingly calling it the Guardian Angel protocol.)

 

Once Jack was more clearly seen, Angela presses another button on the control panel. It gives a little chirp of acknowledgment, signaling it was locked in. The engines flare up, ready to propel her up and forward.

 

Then things go sideways. 

 

Wing A gets the signal three second before Wing B, causing her to begin to spiral. Struggling to slow engines down, she tries to cancel the command to fly to Jack, hoping the wings would default to their basic protocol of simply keeping her from crashing into the ground. Instead, they try to lock onto another identifiable ally, and before Angela can stop it, she is suddenly racing towards Reinhardt. 

 

Trying not to panic at the rapidly approaching ground, she frantically taps against the control screen, muttering, “Work, work, work you little stupid thing.” This is when the screen decides to flicker twice, freeze, and then cut to black, the engines still roaring towards the large man, who is slowly coming to the conclusion that things may be going south. 

 

“Reinhardt!” she yells, trying to steer the wings manually, failing miserably. They weren't meant to be controlled by body movements alone— it just wasn't how she built them. Her heart rises into her throat, as she calls out again: “Rein! You’re going to have to catch me!”

 

_“Catch you?!”_ she just barely hears, the wind roaring past her ears like a hurricane. She’s gaining speed. 

 

“Yes!”

 

“Alright!” The man bends at the knees, opens his large hands, like getting ready to receive a big, rocket propelled football. “Do not fear, _Vögelchen!_ I will keep you from the ground.”

 

She crashes into him, the breath driven from her lungs, the sheer force sending him stumbling back. The engines don't stop. Reinhardt struggles to keep her in his arms, the wings trying to pull her back into the sky, creaking and groaning against their new restraints. 

 

“What is happening?!” the man asks, thoroughly confused.

 

Struggling to regain her breath, Angela strains to reach behind her, between her shoulder blades, where a small covered lever sits. Opening the protective layer, she flips it, and the wings fall dead and silent, engines effectively shut off. 

 

The two of them stay there for a moment, panting heavily, Angela shaking and Reinhardt’s cheek flushing red from where a mechanical feather had hit him. Jack is yelling something from the roof. Ana is sprinting towards them. They ignore them both.

 

“So…” Rein pants, the woman still in his large arms. “That was not that plan, right?”

 

Angela shakes her head, hands bunching against the man’s shirt, as if without him she would start flying away once more. Her mind is running diagnostics at the speed of light, her heart settling back into her chest. “N-no. Very much no.” Rein tilts his head.

 

“… Angela.” She looks up at him. There is a mysterious glint in his one good eye. “Are you an angel, because—“

 

“Stop.” 

 

_Oh_ , but it makes her smile, makes the fear frozen around her ribcage slowly melt into laughter, makes her recognize the hilarity of it all. Going limp in his arms, she throws her head back and giggles through closed white teeth, giddy with the sensation of being alive, scrunching her eyes closed against the sunlight, feeling the weight of her wings hang on her shoulders. She’s _alive_ , and before she was falling, she was _flying_. For a while— for a _moment—_ it was working.

 

Reinhardt is laughing, too, the sound of thunder, deep and booming and bombastic. 

 

Ana and Jack run to them, worried, and rushing to ask her if she was okay, what had happened, _are you insane?_

 

She wiggles her way out of Rein’s arms, stumbles and grabs Jack by the shoulders. Her suit brings out the blue of her eyes, bluer than the sky, full of calculation and clouds. She stops laughing long enough— _just_ long enough— to ask him in a breathy voice, stained with euphoria, “Oh, _Jack_. Jack, did you see me? Did you see me fly?”

 

“I saw you nearly crash into the cobblestone!” he demands, checking her for (another) concussion.

 

She is still laughing, leaning on him for support. The movement makes her lifeless wings bounce from her shoulder blades, the mechanical feathers clinking against one another.

 

“Oh, Jack,” she starts again, means to go on, falls into another lapse of laughter. She’s pretty sure Rein is crying at this point, and she’s not far behind. “Jack,” she manages, “I have so much work to do.”

 

Her name is Angela Ziegler, and a cowboy is sitting half dead in her office.

 

He doesn't seem to mind, honestly. Not nearly as much as when she asks him to refrain from smoking in her clinic, upon which he launches into what she assumes is a speech he’s given a million times, something about corporate fraud and his right under the U. S. of A. to die however he pleases, thank you very much. She listens patiently through the whole of it, feeling for which ribs were fractured or bruised or broken, wondering whether he would need surgery for his shattered kneecap, how much longer until he finally blacked out from sensory overload. 

 

Then she took the cigar from his lips, put it out against her steel counter, and flicked it into the garbage can without a word. 

 

“Witch,” he mutters, leaning his head back against the wall the examination counter was pushed against. 

 

“I have been called worse for less, Mr. McCree” she fires back, popping his shoulder back into place. He lets out a bark of pain, which she tells herself is _not_ pleasing, even if he is what Reyes called the _biggest asshole in the state of Texas._

 

“Sorry,” she says, not caring if she means it or not. Her objective was to keep this man alive, not treat him like a child. Besides, he was currently on every legal painkiller known to man. 

 

“Would you please explain to me how you managed to cause yourself this much bodily damage?” she asks him, tone somewhere between professional and jabbing. 

 

The man says nothing, slowly reaches up to bring his big, shady hat down farther, covering his amber eyes. Angela huffs, reaching for some needle and thread, glancing at the cowboy incredulously. 

 

He was tall and thin, but built strong like an ox. On he feet were boots with silver stirrups— boots stained with mud and murk and what the doctor could only assume to be blood, drip drip dripping onto her floor in a black-brown puddle. His arms were toned, scarred here and there with what looked like knife wounds or shrapnel, the muscles bunching up when she went to start stitching the gash in his chest shut. She could feel him try not to wince, feel his breath catch in his lungs and release in a slow, agonizing exhale. 

 

She immediately regrets being so harsh towards him. Even if he was rude, imprudent, loudmouthed, and a lousy excuse for a gunslinging cosplayer, he was human. And in pain. And it was her job to help.

 

“Have those pills I gave you kicked in yet?” she asks, trying to start up a conversation, trying to get a feel for him. 

 

“Does’id matter?” McCree asks flatly from under his hat.

 

“They’re meant to stop the pain—“

 

She is cut off by a low laugh, something hoarse and hallow, something she wishes she knew how to fix. The movement makes him wince, makes his fracture collarbone flare up in protest. He takes a moment, goes still as Angela fishes for gauze in a close cabinet. “There’re some pains that pills can’t do shit for, doc.”

 

She thinks of the medication by her bedside, the tablets that are supposed to help her sleep, help her uncoil, _relax._

 

“Sometimes, pain’s just pain.”

 

She’ll drink to that.

 

-

 

He get’s better, of course. After little more than a week of bedrest, he’s up and about, walking around Gibraltar like he owns the place, thumbs hanging into the loops of his jeans, duel holsters swaying as he moves. They’re empty, obviously. Can’t have a known criminal strolling around armed, no matter how much Reyes vouches for him. But, for some reason, he looks just as confident without the revolvers, winking at passing girls, telling jokes in a loud, boyish voice during mealtimes. 

 

There are days where Angela doubts that he had once looked so broken, so miserable and lifeless, sitting propped against her wall as she sewed him back together. Maybe it was a side effect from the meds. Maybe he was just a magnificent faker. 

 

She get’s back to work. The Valkyrie Mark III is nearly finished, hanging in various disassembled pieces in the lab. Torbjorn helped with this model on his last visit— suggested she make the place where the wings connect to the suit smaller, the armor itself tighter and more streamline. The feathers are now made of retractable hardlight, borrowed research from Vishkar Corp., making the wings much less heavy.

 

But there is a problem. 

 

(There is _always_ a problem, one that threatens to halt the process of the Valkyrie all together, something monumental and impassable and impossible to solve— until she _does;_ until she gets a little further and finds herself sinking into another anomaly. Some nights she tugs at her hair, thinks about tearing the blueprints apart, burning the bits to ash. She has a glass of wine instead, turns up Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14 in C minor, listens to the rhythm build up and release.)

 

The long term effect of the suit will permanently damage her spine and ribcage without surgical intervention. Her bones can’t handle the perpetual weight of the wings, the pressure of being lifted by her shoulder blades as she zooms to and from person to person. It won’t do. 

 

The other problem (oh, right, yes, there are _two_ impossibles tonight) is control. She has come to the conclusion that the panel she had built into the arm of the suit simply didn't make the cut. For her purpose, Angela needed the Valkyrie to feel as natural to fly as walking did; needed to feel the wings adjust, needed to be able to control every feather. Remote panels were too clunky, too imprecise. Now, on the other hand, if she inserted a pocket of pseudobiological nerves into the bulk of the two wings, attached them through ports into the Intercostal Nerves of her spine—

 

The door to her lab slides opens, the smell of tobacco and overconfidence pouring in. His boots are loud against the tile, and she notices that they've been cleaned, nearly looking like new. He’s also wearing a bulletproof vest. Reyes must have gotten a decent drip on the young man.

 

“I’ve never seen this side’a four in the mornin’,” he comments, resting his hands on his belt, taking in the large workspace. Angela turns her chair to face him, rubs the glow of the monitor she’d been utilizing for the past five hours out from under her eyelids. At least he’s not smoking, she thinks, trying to remain positive. 

 

“Yes, well, as I’m sure you’ve heard, I’m a bit of an insomniac,” she says lightly, glancing at the clock on the wall, the one she had brought with her a year ago from the hospital. It clicks away. Was it really that late— er— early? “Anyways… How may I assist you, Mr. McCree?”

 

He shrugs, slouching down into one of the wooden chairs she had propped against the wall. There’s a uniqueness in how he sits, all spread out, limbs going this way and that, like his goal was to take up as much space as humanly possible. “Figured ya could use some company.”

 

Angela blinks, taken back. The man holds her gaze for a while, amber against azure, then groans and lets his head fall back. 

 

“’S’ a lie. I came to apologize.”

 

She never knew those word were capable of coming out his mouth. Setting down her pen, she clasped her hands atop her lap and gave her most genuine smile, small but real. 

 

"No need-- you were in a massive amount of pain. I'm surprised you didn't pass out," she says, glad the man had come to resolve the lingering tension between them. Angela was no good at reading between social lines. The directness was appreciated. 

 

But the sharpshooter just shakes his head, reaches up to remove his hat and run a calloused hand through his curly hair. There's a certain air to him now, like he's an actor on his off-shift who's tired and trying to get away from all the stage lights. 

 

"I was clear in the head. Just'a asshole." He laughs that same breaking laugh she heard the day he sat half dead in her clinic. "To the doctor saving my ungrateful life, of all people." 

 

Angela squeezes her hands tighter, thinking. “Was there something I did to drive you to defense? I know I can be… aloof.”

 

His eyes widen just a little, like that was the last thing he wanted. “No, no, you were right as rain, ma’am. You just… you remind me of someone.”

 

She raises a playful eyebrow, smiling a bit bigger. “An ex-girlfriend?”

 

“A mother.”

 

(Oh, Angela, you brilliant little _fool)._

 

“Are you alright?” he asks, nodding to her foot, which was tapping at the speed of light again against the tile, a nervous tick she was struggling with as of late. Blushing, she forces it to lay still, fishes for the words.

 

“Yes. I-I apologize. Ah… forgive me for being imprudent, your official medical file never said… how old are you, Mr. McCree?”

 

He looks her up and down, sizing her up, taking her in stride. Apparently deciding something, he answers quietly, “Twenty-one. You?”

 

“Twenty-one.”

 

They stare at each other, suddenly aware of their common ground, something they couldn’t share with anyone else on this base, something no one could fake. They were both just kids. Kids who grew up fast; kids who were left on their own to drown, but one way or another washed up here instead. 

 

“Can I stay for a bit?” he asks, and before he’s even finished, she’s already telling him _yes._

 

Her name is Angela Ziegler, and she’s about to go into surgery. 

 

She doesn't tell Jack. Or Ana. Or Reyes, or even Reinhardt. She knows what they’ll say to her, knows how they’ll handle the notion of drilling holes in her shoulder blades, reinforcing her spine and ribs with ribbons of titanium alloy. She appreciates them, considers them her friends, but she knows they won’t get it, they won’t understand why.

 

She tells Jesse, though. Tells him everything: the newly developed nanites that were about to flood into her system, the way she built them to remain inside of her for years, how they would hopefully raise the rate at which her cells heal and regenerate. Tells him about the thin, silver-white metal ports to be placed into her back, where the wings would hook in, where the nerves of her spine would link with the receptors she had place into the mechanical feathers. Tells him, in a quieter voice, that she’s anxious for over it all.

 

The cowboy just holds one of her hands, tells her he’ll be there when she wakes up.

 

(He is).

 

Her name is Angela Ziegler, and she is flying. 

 

Not falling, not hovering back and forth like a remote-controlled helicopter— _flying_ , like the doves.

 

Jesse is whooping from the ground, pumping his fist into the air and yelling something she can’t quiet make out. Ana is watching her though the scope of her sniper, a pleased smile on her sharp face, and Rein— who had jokingly promised to be there to catch her once more, just in case— is there with her. Reyes is watching from the rooftop, arms crossed, looking surprised but impressed. She doesn't blame him. The Valkyrie Mark IV was completed more than six month after the initial incident with the original Mark I, and for much of that time, the outcome of the project was looking bleak. 

 

But now she was able to feel the wind against her face, the way it slid through her fingers, over the flaps of her wings. 

 

(They took getting used to in the beginning, her wings. The first time she plugged them in, felt the nerves connect, she screamed like someone had shot her. She kept them in, though; gripped the railing of her counter until she could no longer feel her fingers, until the pain that had once ripped through her back was reduced to a dull ache and her eyes stopped watering).

 

The engines are silent, but the sound of the hardlight feathers brushing against one another during sharp turns and dives is similar to that of wind-chimes, soothing and soft. When she lands, they sing quietly, retracting into the metal casing and powering down, and she _feels_ them— the way the sun turns them warm, just as real as her flesh and bones.

 

The same minute Jack gets back from his mission, she is waiting for him in his office, still clad in the suit, still wearing her wings. She’s got that look to her again. 

 

He asks her what was going on.

 

She tells him he might want to sit down.

 

-

 

“I think it needs’za new paint job,” Jesse tells her afterwards, holding his chin and scrutinizing the Valkyrie like it was a piece of art. The suit was hanging on a holding manikin, behind a makeshift case of glass. “The whole grey thing ain’t working for me.”

 

Angela laughs, not looking away from the computer screen. “Is that so?” she asks playfully, typing away. 

 

“Yes ma’am. The blue’s nice, though. Brings out your eyes.”

 

“How romantic,” she teases, pushing up her glasses and scribbling down some notes. “I never really gave it much thought. Grey goes with everything.”

 

“So does black,” he offers, and she laughs, pushing away from her desk and facing the man. 

 

“Reyes really got a hold of you, huh, cowboy?” she says, grinning at the way Jesse scowls. 

 

“Well, it _does,”_ he emphasis, stuffing his hands in his pockets, looking put-out.

 

“I’m not sure medics wear black, Jess.”

 

It’s his turn to laugh, his crooked nose scrunching with the effort. “And _I’m_ not sure medics got wings and halos!” He points to the device she was in the process of building, a circular, golden hairband that she had intended to use for better communication; a sort of comms unit.

 

Flushing, she shoves the thing in a drawer, closes it with vigor. “It’s just a prototype! I won’t be using it anytime soon, thank you very much.” Her friend just laughs a little more, fanning himself idly with his big hat, looking content. They say nothing for awhile. Angela studies the suit, wondering if he was right, if she should be giving it more thought.

 

“You’ll be careful at there for me, won’t ya?”

 

She nods, not turning. “I’ll do my best.”

 

“You always do.” He stands up, walks next to her and returns to his preceding thoughts. “White might look nice. Complete the whole _angle_ thing ya got going on. Ain’t that what doctors wear anyways?”

 

She scoffs. “It’s just wings, Jesse. Like those suits Helix Security are trying to put together.”

 

He thinks about it for a moment, then shakes his head. “Nah,” he says surly, looking up at the Valkyrie, “This is more than that, I think. It’s got a heart.” 

 

“Does it, now?”

 

He laughs once more, draping an arm across her shoulders, using to other to gesture wildly. “Oh yeah, doc. Angela Ziegler, professional prodigy, swooping in to save the day. God have Mercy.” 

 

It makes her smile, giggle along with him. She looks at the suit, the thing she spent so many nights on, tinkering, trying, failing, and she thinks it might manage to help her save the world. She tilts her head, makes some mental adjustments. 

 

White. Maybe Jesse’s on to something, here.

 

Her name is Angela Ziegler, and she is waiting for the door to open.

 

The hovercraft sways gently as it cuts through the air, over explosions and what once were buildings, effectively maneuvering high above the battlefield. She hears it all, the familiar rumble of war, of gunshots and barrel bombs, and she isn't afraid. Or maybe she is, and she’s just drunk on her ignorance, ready to get out there, ready to start. Maybe that doors drop and she’ll see it all, up close all over again, and she’ll regret everything. 

 

“It’s okay to be nervous,” Ana tells her from an adjacent seat, watching the doctor tap her foot against the floor, holding her medical kit tight to her chest. 

 

“I know.”

 

“Jack and Reyes want you behind the line of fire at all times, where you can help up the stragglers. Nothing happens back there, and if something does, I’ll see it first and give you cover fire.”

 

“I remember.”

 

“Just breathe.”

 

“I am.”

 

The landing gear lowers, the ground growing closer, and she can feel the wings on her back shiver with anticipation. She goes over all the supplies she has on her; the nanites she deemed ready and safe for use in the field, the three scalpels waiting in a compartment on her shoulder, a myriad of bandages and needles and thread, antiseptics and disinfectants, surgical scissors and tongs. And her hands, of course. The most reliable things she can call her own. The only reason she got this far.

 

The ship lurches forward as it lands. The gunshots are louder. She stands with Ana, with the dozens of fresh soldiers that she will not let die out here. She isn't afraid; her hands don't shake. She knows what to do. 

 

She feels a firm grip on her shoulder, the familiar smell of tea and honey. “Take care of them,” Ana tells her, sharp eyes hard and ready, “And be safe.” The doors open to a world of sand and spent shotgun shells, smoke smothering the sunlight, daring her to come forward.

 

Her name is Angela Ziegler. And she is ready to save some lives.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this earlier in the year. I know it's a little all over, but I hope someone can get something out of it. I really, really like Angela's character, and I'll be taking a lot of different takes on her in the future. They won't all be this scattered. Thanks.
> 
> Translations (via google):
> 
> Mein Gott-- My God  
> Ich werde dich aufhalten-- I'll stop you.  
> Eile, eile, ich muss anfangen.-- Hurry, hurry, there is much I must do.  
> Sprichst du Deutsch?-- You speak German?  
> Tatsächlich! Besser als dieser englische quatsch, ha! Es wird gut sein, dich zu haben, Doktor, das kann ich schon sagen.-- Indeed! Better than this english nonsense, ha! It'll be good to have you, Doctor, I can tell.  
> Verdammt-- Damn (it)  
> Simplón-- moron  
> Traidor-- Traitor


End file.
